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Longtime supervisor, El Paso clerk Lloyd Yanisch dies

A longtime Pierce County Board Supervisor and Town of El Paso Clerk has died.

Lloyd E. Yanisch suffered a heart attack and died Saturday. He was 93.

Yanisch served as town clerk for El Paso from 1965-2001 and as a Pierce County Board Supervisor from 1983-2000.

On the occasion of his retirement from the town position after 36 years, he was interviewed in a Herald article April 4, 2001. At that time, he said roads were the biggest concern for town officials. He felt El Paso's roads had been kept in good shape, along with the town's equipment, replaced in a timely manner.

A month earlier, the then-new town hall and garage had opened. Officials didn't have to do much of a sales job on the building after people broke through the floor of the old hall two years before, he said.

Despite a town hall being available, Yanisch said he thought the best arrangement was for the clerk to work from home, considering the part-time nature of the job and access to records. However, he also admitted to not being skilled with computers, for which the replacement structure was designed.

He identified filling out the annual report to the state as his least favorite clerk's duty. Preparing for and attending meetings was his favorite part, he said.

Former Town Chairman Bob Hines originally convinced him to seek election when his predecessor, Bill Sanford, quit after 34 years, Yanisch said. He acknowledged having no particular inclinations toward it, but was always interested in civics. He went to caucuses with his father and politics was often part of the discussion around the dinner table, he said.

Part of the house Yanisch occupied at the time of his death was built when his dad, Fred, was age four or five, around 1894-95, he said. He remembered learning to milk cows at age six, plus later cutting his home farm's last stand of trees off in the late 1920s and dynamiting the stumps, taking out the pieces with help from a team of horses.

In the same family since 1844, Yanisch was proud of the fact the farm was honored by the Century Farm program at the Wisconsin State Fair in 1988.